


love has a quiet voice

by itsrosencrantz



Series: Syldue Modern AU bits and bobs [2]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: M/M, Modern AU, POV Dedue Molinaro, Sylvain's Emotional Unavailability, soft smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:15:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27149953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsrosencrantz/pseuds/itsrosencrantz
Summary: Dedue and Sylvain are friends with benefits - and it could be something more, but Sylvain's not ready for that yet.When he is, Dedue will be there.
Relationships: Sylvain Jose Gautier/Dedue Molinaro
Series: Syldue Modern AU bits and bobs [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2149728
Comments: 10
Kudos: 36





	love has a quiet voice

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as a birthday gift for a very dear friend of mine, and someone who indulges me by writing Syldue modern AU FWB. I love you very much, Max! 
> 
> Just some nice, soft smut where Sylvain is loved and appreciated, as he deserves to be!

Dedue is making one final pass over the food preparation counter when Sylvain makes good on his promise to stop by. Without saying a word, he makes his presence known; Dedue can see him out of the corner of his eye, leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed over his broad chest, posture relaxed and coiled simultaneously, somehow. There is a unique energy about Sylvain that he hasn't encountered with anyone else before - an easygoing warmth that is as genuine as it is a veneer, covering something sharp and dangerous and, from what Dedue has seen, more often pointed inward than anywhere else. He is a complex man trying desperately not to be, Dedue thinks, and that is... sad.

It isn't pity that he feels for him, however. _Compassion_ is a better word, or perhaps empathy - and both are gestures that Dedue imagines would sit uncomfortably on his shoulders, stretched like a too-small shirt: cutting off circulation, leaving welts despite their good intentions. As much as Sylvain is open and giving of himself, he is a difficult man to know and that, Dedue has learned, is by design.

They wait one another out, as they have the few times they've met like this. Sylvain is slouching very slightly, fingertips drumming against his bicep, and Dedue is polishing stainless steel until it gleams. It is his own reflection's eyes that he meets when he asks, curiosity flaring at the edges of his tone, "Aren't you bored, Sylvain?"

"Watching a handsome man work?" Sylvain's voice is deep and rich, playful. "I'm the opposite of bored. Just wondering what I've got to do to get the undivided attention that countertop is taking for granted."

Dedue doesn't so much laugh as he does exhale, turning to toss the washrag he's been using into the dirty linen bin. It gives him a moment to center himself, because Sylvain offers compliments with ease and abundance, and Dedue receives them rarely. It is another way they are interestingly, uniquely suited to knowing one another - Dedue can see where the sincerity slips between his gilded words, where genuine affection underlies what is being spoken and where the turns of phrase are rote and perfunctory. He doesn't begrudge Sylvain when they are, but he also doesn't respond to them.

For Sylvain, flirting is as much conversation as it is offer. It is how he knows to relate to people, how he has power and makes himself appealing, desirable. Dedue has been parsing his words since they met, patiently analyzing to determine what the intent beneath them is, and he knows Sylvain's greatest fear is just this: that someone _will_ do that and they will find him lacking. Sometimes, he is surprised they've come this far at all, but others, he knows it was inevitable.

Dedue likes people who understand the weight of how they move in the world. He doesn't always approve of the ways they choose to walk, but it is not always his place to approve. With Sylvain, he knows that, deep down, he wants to be understood and cared for so much that it hurts him, that it terrifies him - so much that he wants to grasp that feeling with both of his hands and squeeze it until it is small and weak enough that it's no longer dangerous to him. Sylvain is also smart enough to know that he can't do that (that burning the palms of his hands to get to the salve inside won't truly do him any good) but they all have their ways of coping.

He unties the knot of his apron, facing Sylvain once more, and hangs it up on its habitual hook. There are many things he could say, but what he decides on is, "I'm glad you're here."

If he wasn't watching for it, he'd miss the ripple of surprise that slides effortlessly into a self-assured smirk. He wonders, as he walks over and settles his hands on Sylvain's hips, how many people know to look for the shift, or how many even care to know that they have to look into his eyes if they want to catch it.

"Of course you are." Sylvain's chin tilts up, his smile curled loose and warm. "Looks like you had a long day. A rough day?"

"A day," Dedue agrees, fingers slipping up beneath the hem of Sylvain's shirt, settling against warm skin. This close, his freckles are visible, but barely; they'll come back in riotous force in the summer, and Dedue looks forward to mapping their shape this time, now that he's allowed to. "No longer or rougher than usual. One I am glad to see the end of."

Sylvain hooks a finger in the vee of Dedue's shirt, pulling him down so that the tips of their noses brush. His lashes dip low, casting tiny shadows over his cheek, and his tone is a thoughtful hum. "Want to take it out on me?"

It's a tease, no barbs hidden in its corners that Dedue can detect, but he knows Sylvain well enough by now to know how to navigate a question like that. To call him on it baldly would be to have it turned around on itself, shaken loose until it resembles the joke he means to pass it as, and it could be that's all it's meant to be - maybe there is no deeper meaning. Maybe, for once, something Sylvain says with his mouth a breath away from someone else's is as simple as the words being spoken, but Dedue doesn't think so.

So he skims his hands up Sylvain's sides, applying just enough pressure to feel his ribs expand with a breath. He turns his wrists inward, moving over his chest, his shoulders, his throat, and only when his fingers have slipped into soft curls does Dedue press his mouth to Sylvain's. Open and inviting, he lets Sylvain press into the kiss with tongue and teeth, but he doesn't match his fervor - not yet. The tips of his fingers rub soft circles against Sylvain's scalp, and gradually, the glide of tongues softens from borderline filthy to something gentle and seeking, paced by traded breaths rather than stuttered heartbeats.

Dedue lets a kiss slide off-center, catching the corner of Sylvain's mouth and pressing words against his skin, soft. "No. I want to enjoy you."

With one hand, he reaches for the light switch and catches half of the pedals; the room around them plunges into semi-darkness, and Sylvain's head thumps back against the wall, his throat bared. Dedue places a kiss there next, lips forming a smile against the shape of his Adam's apple as it bobs. 

"I want you to enjoy me," he continues, sliding a hand around his waist and guiding him in close, closer, until their chests bump. "That is how I would like to end my day."

" _That_ I can do," Sylvain says on a laugh, winding his arms around Dedue's shoulders as he curls his hands beneath his thighs and lifts. His legs wrap next, locking around Dedue's hips, and he arches his back. "God, it's so fucking hot when you do that."

Hands firmly on Sylvain's ass, Dedue hides a smile against his neck as he begins to walk to them to the stairs. "I know."

\--

As much as Sylvain will make this about what Dedue wants, what Dedue wants is Sylvain. He wants his passion and his clever hands and the slick slide of his mouth, but he wants his gratification, too; wants the shuddering intake of breath when pleasure catches him off guard, wants the moan pulled deep from his chest and the flush down his throat as hands take him apart with kindness, with affection, with _love_.

The words aren't said aloud, too much and too little at the same time to exist in the spaces that find their way between them as they stumble to the bed, but Dedue speaks them with every touch, unafraid of giving too much of himself to a man he knows would never just ask it of him.

"What do you want?" Sylvain asks, smile crooked as Dedue sets him to the mattress and leans over him. Even as he's speaking, he's moving; his tugs the tie out of Dedue's hair and combs his fingers through it with one hand, trails the other invitingly down his chest. "I'm all yours, baby, as long as you promise to take this off."

"In time," Dedue murmurs, working his way down the line of buttons on Sylvain's shirt, fingertips brushing skin. "What do _you_ want, Sylvain?"

His eyes, honeyed rum and half-mast, move over Dedue's face. "I want," he begins in a drawl, catching one of Dedue's hands and pressing it to his stomach, sliding down over the button of his jeans, rubbing his palm down the length of his zip. His hips roll up invitingly. "To fuck. Or be fucked. Both sound nice."

Holding Sylvain when he's like this is holding a live wire; Dedue has to be the earth, to ground him and bring him down below the frenetic thrum of self-destructive lust and toward something that doesn't hurt when it's held. No one asked it of him, but he _wants_ to - he cares.

Sometimes, he thinks the hardest thing for Sylvain is being cared for. 

His jeans shimmy down his thighs with the barest of effort, and though Sylvain's hand is in his hair trying to urge his mouth to his half-hard cock, Dedue takes his time. His mouth meanders a path from his breastbone down the planes of his stomach, breath warm against wet skin; for every inch gained with tongue and teeth, his hands follow until Sylvain's knees are caught in his pants, a litany of Sylvain’s encouragement that volleys between crass and reverent accompanying every twist and tug. He's beautiful like this - urging and impatient, anticipatory and beginning to yield all at the same time, and Dedue wonders how many times he would have to tell him that to be believed.

He kisses the sharp line of Sylvain's hip, his own arousal a slow building burn that steadie s his hands when they want to tremble, and he asks again, "What do you want?"

"You," Sylvain says immediately, laughing at himself when the word is pulled from him taffy-thin, breathy. "Your mouth. Your hands. My mouth and hands all over-"

His words catch in his throat and change shape, a long, low moan spilling out and wrapping itself around Dedue's heart as he takes him into his mouth. Sylvain's hand twists in his hair, and Dedue can feel his thighs shake when he plants his feet against the mattress and locks his hips. More praise and appreciation tumble from his mouth as Dedue closes his eyes and loses himself to all but Sylvain: the hitch in his voice when Dedue presses his tongue flat and pulls off, the muscle that leaps under his hand as he gently anchors him to the bed by his stomach, and the salty tang that all combine as proof that his pleasure exists in this moment because it is the two of them. 

"Come on, baby, I want-" When he tugs on Dedue's hair this time, Dedue obliges, sitting back on his thighs and wiping the corner of his mouth with his thumb. "Oh, okay, yeah. Down you go. Off, then down. I'm riding you."

Sylvain half-sits up and tugs at Dedue's shirt, and he laughs softly, pulling it over his head and tossing it on the floor as he slides off Sylvain's lap and lets him kick his pants the rest of the way off. They're a sight between them; Sylvain's chest flushed red and prettily with his shirt hanging halfway off his shoulders, Dedue naked from the waist-up with the vestiges of love-bites from the last time they were together still fading from his skin. 

"Off," Sylvain repeats, and his voice is finally the exact timbre that Dedue adores; the warmth in it is genuine and tinged with affection, the softness creeping into his words and face unaware. Dedue's pants join his shirt and so, too, do his boxers, but not without Sylvain peppering his throat in kisses, scolding lightly, "You knew I was coming over. I don't know why you bothered with underwear."

Dedue just laughs, close enough to the bedside table that he can grab the lube without having to get up - a fact that Sylvain notes with a smirk. 

"Didn't even put it away from last time, huh?" He asks, setting his mouth to the nearly-gone mark on Dedue's shoulder and sucking. 

It stings, but in the best of ways. Dedue warms the lube between his fingers, angling his head just enough to invite Sylvain to move on to his neck - more ground than he usually gives, and the deep noise of approval Sylvain makes is met with a smile - and tangles the fingers of one hand in his hair, using the other to begin to open him up slowly. 

In his ear, he murmurs, "Well, I knew you were coming over," and is rewarded by a laugh, bright and happy, against his skin.

They move together with the ease of familiarity twisted taut with anticipation, two people who know one another's bodies well enough to know there is still so much to discover. Sylvain's teasing murmurs fade into sharp, staccato breaths traded between messy kisses, and in this, at least, they are alike: they are quiet when they come together, when the theatrics of the chase fall away and the world narrows to only the places where they can touch one another and the thrum beneath their skin.

Sylvain is lovely in all ways and from all angles, but like this - fanning his fingers out over Dedue's chest and pressing him back onto the bed, lowering himself with a sigh as his kiss-bitten mouth drops open and his eyes flutter closed - if Dedue could paint, he would immortalize this moment. His hands settle on Sylvain's hips, moving with them as they set to a sinuous roll.

Now, he can be honest. Sylvain will accept when Dedue tells him, "You're beautiful," if they are like this, with sweat rolling down Sylvain's spine and Dedue's breath's coming in harsh pants, his eyes dark and unwavering on Sylvain.

He will not take it for what it is in its entirety - he won't believe that Dedue has thought this from the first time his lips quirked into a genuine, boyish smile and he will think this later, when they are tucked around one another in bed, sticky and sated - not yet. But one day he will, Dedue hopes, and every moment of the journey should be celebrated – explored – allowed its time, so he does.

Dedue gets a hand between them, smearing his thumb in precome and stroking until Sylvain is bowed forward, one hand curled on Dedue's shoulder for support as he moans and shakes through his release. Even though he's finished, Sylvain is still moving, voice throaty and encouraging as he grinds down into Dedue's lap and urges him faster, harder.

Light bursts beneath his skin, a thousand electric flares that crest over him in waves, and when he comes back down, Sylvain is sprawled over his chest and mouthing kisses over his collarbone. Dedue's hands trail down his back, drawing nonsensical shapes into his skin as his heart slows to a steady beat and his breathing evens out.

"That was exactly what I needed," Sylvain hums, voice soaked in contentment. 

Lips against Sylvain's temple, he says quietly, " _You_ are exactly what I needed." and lets the words hang in the air between them, unassuming and honest.

Sylvain stiffens, and seconds stretch into eternity before he relaxes, sliding off his chest and sitting up at the edge of the bed, facing out. It is a risk, but a calculated one; it's a lot for Sylvain to hear, more to ask him to believe, but Dedue promised himself when this began between them that he would offer without pressing, that he would push without forcing. He can’t make Sylvain believe in his own worthiness in this regard, but he can steadily, quietly love him, and he can hope that one day that will be enough.

He sits up, too, watching shadow play over the planes on Sylvain's back, before he stands and turns around.

Offering his hand, a halting little smile on his mouth, Sylvain says, "What you need, handsome, is a shower. With me."

Relief unfurls in his chest and he laces their fingers together, allowing Sylvain to pull him to his feet and then lead him to his own shower, flicking lights as they go. When the water is running hot and steam is curling around their feet, Sylvain cups a hand against the side of his face and presses a soft kiss to his mouth, lingering as the water beats down on them.

The words aren't spoken aloud between them, not yet.

But Sylvain tells him with every touch, too, and Dedue smiles.

It is, and it will be, enough. Every step of the way.


End file.
